The moonies own Kaplan

The GRE and SAT prep people. Really, they do. They also own the Washington Post. Recently, the Rev Moon had some US Senators crown him, which I thought was covered under treason laws of this country, but oh well. He's the second coming of Jesus. He hates gay people. He's not so fond of jews. But, man, he loves hyper conservatives. And they love him. How can fundies get along so well with him? False messiahs are a sign of the End Times. The Rev Moon is all good news. We don't need to protect the environment cuz the world is about to end! Huzzah! Let's plunder the Earth before the meek get it!

I was hung over but energetic yesterday evening and wrote a 10K char history of US relations with Iraq, which I posted to Jen Savage's LJ comments, but I didn't save a local copy of it. And then she killed the post, thus sending my overly-long rant to the big bit bucket in the sky. Alas. I feel the need to summarize, however: Hussein became our friend when the people of Iran overthrew the US-backed despot, the Shaw. We gave Hussein arms and bio-weapons for the war with Iran. We also gave Iran weapons covertly, which is how Ollie North got so popular. Hussein nationalized the oil industries of Iraq and we were pissed. He called us, his military backers, up and asked if it was ok to attack Kuwait. We said sure. He conquered the whole country. We were pissed and blocked all of Iraq's attempts at a peaceful solution and then decimated his military as we drove them out of Kuwait and shot them as they retreated unarmed towards the Iraq border. Then we set up two no fly-zones, including one in the south that took up about half the county and covered the shiite areas. We bombed them weekly for 11 years, hitting all sorts of military and non-military targets, terrifying the populace and killing lots of people. However, when there was a popular uprising against Hussein, we allowed him military access to the southern no-fly-zone to put down the rebellion, because we didn't want a democracy, we wanted a new thug who would re-privatise the oil industries. We had the strongest emabrgo in modern times, preventing Iraq from importing many medicines and equipment to rebuilt the infrastructure destroyed in the war. 5 million children died from the sanctions. UN weapons inspectors destroyed more than 90% of Iraq's weapon-making capabilities until Clinton ordered them to leave in 1998, so he could bomb the country. We bombed Baghdad but did not get into a "war." The Bush team was making plans to invade before he was even president. As soon as 9/11 happened, Bush had military officials drawing up battle plans against Iraq. There was no credible evidence of WMD. Osama hated Iraq for being too secular. Al Queda and Hussein traded insults and certainly were not aiding each other. We invaded anyway, and Iraqis, after 11 years of bombings and sanctions, were not so happy to see us. More and more of them are taking up arms against us. Oil imports to the US, which were at their highest point during the embargo have fallen drastically as insurgents use sabotage against us. Anti-American rage is at an all time high in the Arab world, causing al Queda membership to swell drastically. Iraq's chaos has actually harmed the potential for foreign investment. The only chances to make money off it are from US taxpayer-funded war-profiteering and possibly future oil revenues after our new thug slaughters the country into submission, but that's long term possibilities. In the meantime, we're not safer from terrorism. We're less safe. However, we've long been promoting instability in the region. Buying oil from the Middle East means sending them our money. We can get it back by selling them weapons. Therefore, we want them to want to buy lots of weapons. Also, we don't want them to nationalize oil industries. We want those to be owned by multinational corporations. So now we've made an example of Iraq. Nationalize your oil and you're next. So we've accomplished our real objectives, which is war for private profit. go USA!

I had way too much coffee this morning. If I can find my original, longer comment (as if this post isn't long enough), I'll post it...